The Willing Descent of Hermione Granger
by Serene Pristine
Summary: CoS AU - Hermione Granger couldn't waste a book, even a blank diary she didn't remember buying. With a few careless words and whispered secrets, Tom Riddle begins his dark seduction. Observe this tangle of thorns.
1. TM Riddle & HJ Granger

Summary: CoS AU - Hermione Granger couldn't waste a book, even a blank diary she didn't remember buying. But when it writes back, Hermione falls into a world of darkness, knowledge, and power that changes her path completely.

Hermione Granger had a memory to boast about, especially when it came to books. She remembered with fondness and nostalgia the first crinkled copy of _The Fellowship of the Ring _she picked out of a used bookstore bargain bin when she was eight. She vividly recalled her first dictionaries (English, French and German), and even could remember her first book ever (a copy of _Peter Rabbit_ for her second birthday).

When she found out she was a witch, it got worse.

_Standard Book of Spells, _the Gilderoy Lockhart collection_, 1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi_-she memorized all of them. As soon as they were paid for at Flourish and Blotts, they were unsafe, girding themselves to be raped by the voracious mind of Hogwarts' most talented witch.

Then what was this black book from Vauxhall Road doing in her trunk?

She knew that Vauxhall Arches was in an incredibly shady part of London, and she knew that she hadn't purchased a blank book from there.

It also was ancient. The pages had a yellowish wear and the cover looked like it had seen several North Atlantic storms. The only other clue as to its origins was tiny embossed letters spelling out "T.M. Riddle."

Perhaps that was the manufacturer of the diary?

After the welcoming feast and Harry and Ron's unceremonious story about crashing Mr. Weasley's car into the Whomping Willow, Hermione retired to her room and propped open the book on her knees.

Well, she could use it as a homework planner at the least. She had to get a start on her assignments anyway and outlining the summer reading wouldn't be a bad place to start.

On the first page, she wrote in her meticulous block print, "Homework Planner" and underneath, "This is the property of Hermione Granger." The pages greedily drank the ink and an immaculate cursive replied under her possessive words.

**I most certainly am not the possession of Hermione Granger. **

Fear clutched at her heart. Oh God! She was so stupid! What if this was a cursed book? She could be mortally endangering herself. She stood up and paced in the dorm a bit, earning a strange look from Lavender.

She looked down at it.

**Although I'm certainly pleased to make your acquaintance. May I ask how you came into "possession" of this diary? **

She bit her lip. Her overdeveloped sense of rules and decorum were telling her, screaming at her, to run straight to Percy Weasley or a Professor. She had heard terrible stories of cursed books that made the reader go blind or mad or even start singing madrigals for the rest of their lives. How could she be first in her class if she had to sing madrigals constantly?

**Hello? Well, I suppose it would be rude of me not to properly introduce myself. No doubt you might think I'm some horrible piece of dark magic that wants to corrupt you. **

The words faded into the paper in a sort of elegant twist.

**My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, and I was created as a sort of homework guide. My namesake was an excellent student, but paranoid. He didn't trust his peers to not rifle through his homework notes, so he created me to hold onto them. I ended up gaining a fair bit of knowledge of the Hogwarts curriculum and he passed me on to a younger student once he had graduated as a gesture of goodwill. I suppose that you're the next recipient?**

Hermione read the introduction with wary eyes. It sounded reasonable. It actually sounded like something she would do so that Harry and Ron would stop asking her for notes all the time. She held the quill and hesitantly replied.

_It's nice to meet you, Tom. I don't know how I got this book (should I call it "you"? how sentient are you exactly?). It just appeared in my trunk. _

**Just write to me as if I were a person, Hermione. May I ask what year it is? **

_The term just began. _

**Well, I should not be surprised. Time passes rather quickly in these pages. To answer your earlier question, I am sentient, but I have been blessed with less angst and existentialism than your average teenager. **

Hermione smiled in spite of herself. Tom didn't seem like a curse waiting to pop out at make her sing madrigals for eternity. He just seemed like a nice, polite, unadventurous boy (very much unlike her two best friends.)

A tiny sensation pulled at her, like a small child pulling on the hem of its mother's skirt. What if this was just part of the magic? What if she would be slowly coerced into trusting the book? Then again, a homework planner that could help her with the curriculum could be very useful. But was that cheating? Should she go to one of the Professors, or would they just think she was crying wolf? Tom continued.

**It can become dull though, so I'm pleased someone has decided to use me for my original purpose. Which year and house are you?**

Hermione decided that she would lie. She couldn't lie about her age. If she was actually going to use the book as a homework planner, she couldn't well say she was a seventh year learning about second year charms. But she could lie about her house, and that would keep Tom off-guard in case he did have coercive magic behind him.

_I'm a second-year Ravenclaw. And my last name isn't really Granger. It's Jean. _

**And why did you lie to your homework planner, Hermione Jean? **

_Granger is my pen name. I use it sometimes because I don't like my original name. _

Hermione was pulling this all out of the air, but she the less Tom truthfully knew about her, the less likely something bad would happen.

**I completely understand. I hate my name as well. **

_Why do you hate it? It sounds fine._

**It's the name of my negligent father. I was raised in an orphanage, so I hold some bitterness about the subject. Why do you dislike your name? **

Hermione didn't know how to respond. Why would people dislike their names in the wizarding world? She racked her brains for an answer, and then she thought of Draco Malfoy and his blood purity rants.

_Because Jean is the surname of my muggle father. I picked Granger as a pen name because it was the last name of the witch who rescued me from him, and she taught me everything I knew. _

Hermione's hand shook with each lie she wrote. She scribbled onto a piece of parchment on her nightstand - "Real name: Jean, hated muggle father 'Granger'" in order to keep her story straight. A part of her asked herself why on earth she should keep up this charade. She could easily tell the truth or shut the book and never write in it again. Why did she feel compelled to lie?

**Then, I shall call you Hermione Granger. We should all be called what we wish. Might I add that it is no surprise you are a Ravenclaw-your grammar and writing are immaculate. **

Hermione blushed. She knew why she felt compelled to lie-this book was polite and knowledgeable. It had a past and spoke eloquently about it and didn't tease her about her penchant for excellent grammar and handwriting. No. It complimented her. But she was smart, and so she couldn't be truthful to it. No, if she wanted to continue using it, she had to be careful. But what was wrong with getting a bit of recognition and praise every once in awhile-especially from someone her age?

_How old are you? When were you a student at Hogwarts? _

**I can show you the Hogwarts of my time. Would you like that? **

Hermione hastily scribbled back.

_I'm sorry, but what would that entail? I've only just met you. I can't go gallivanting off into the past-I actually have three classes tomorrow and I am the top student of my year. _

**Of course, I understand. Perhaps some other time then. I am just eager to play host, for Hogwarts was always my home. I didn't pause to think that you may be uncomfortable. **

Hermione was struck by something. This Tom seemed an awful lot like Harry. Harry was raised without his parents, and she knew that Hogwarts was his home more than his nasty aunt and uncle's house in Surrey.

**So, which is your favorite class at Hogwarts? I myself always enjoyed Transfiguration, but the Professor didn't seem to like me. **

Hermione settled in and wrote about her favorite subjects (especially Charms and Potions). Tom commiserated about Professor Snape and gave her some tips as to how to master transfigurations more quickly. The sun began to creep into the tower and Hermione heard Parvati stir in the four-poster besides her. She couldn't believe that she had spent the entire night writing, but Tom just knew so much about magic. She knew that with his help, she could be first in her class easily, and maybe even start preparing for her O.W.L. exams.

_Tom, could you keep the notes and things we talked about visible so I can consult them in class? That way, people will just think you're a normal planner. _

**But of course. Until next time, Hermione Granger. **

**(AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Well of course, Tom Riddle isn't a homework planner, but the conniving boy had to do anything to keep Hermione writing to him. I tried to channel the "We'll be killed, or worse, expelled!" side to Hermione in order to make this as in-character as possible. The arc of this story will be Hermione's seduction into the dark side of magic, but it will by no means be an easy descent. Hermione will be a tough cookie, and Tom will have to use every trick in the arsenal.)

Please review. This is my first attempt at fanfiction, and so I have much to learn.


	2. Means to an End is Man's Greatest Friend

After Hermione finally closed her homework planner and finished her morning ablutions, she shuffled down the steps to the Great Hall, only to be greeted with a terrible shrieking noise.

"_**-BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME." **_Hermione saw a red envelope near Ron burst into flames as the boy buried his head in his arms. Neville put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

She sat down next to Harry and snorted at Ron. It served him right, flying that car to school, especially when they could have just asked a Professor or someone for help. _But then why don't you tell the professors about Tom? _

She shook her head.

_It's different. Tom will help me with my studies, not help get the Wizarding World exposed. _

She took out _Voyages with Vampires _and started to copy down memos into the tiny black book. When Professor McGonagall came down table handing out schedules, she covered Tom's planner with a sheet of parchment. _Now why did I just do that? _

"Double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs," Harry read out. "And then Transfiguration." Hermione glanced down and copied the schedule into the planner, protectively holding it to her chest so that Harry wouldn't see the cursive remarks, **"Gilderoy Lockhart? What type of name is that for a defense teacher?"**

She scribbled a reply.

_He's actually very accomplished! He slew a whole coven of vampires in Albania and wrote a book about it. _There was no writing for a good minute, as if Tom was formulating a theory.

**The only person I knew who could have accomplished such a feat is definitely not this Gilderoy Lockhart character. **

_He is somewhat after your time. Who do you think did it instead? _

**Why, myself, of course. **

_I'm fairly sure you're not alive now. I don't know of any Tom Riddles, and I have extensively studied _Wizards of the 20th Century _and _Hogwarts, a History. _Although, I do plan on looking you up in the library just to see if you're an actual person or something trying to "corrupt my soul."_

She shut the book and left with Harry and Ron for Herbology. They had quite an interesting lesson on Mandrakes, and she met a nice Hufflepuff boy named Justin Finch-Fletchley. She blushed thinking about his compliment—"and of course, you must be Hermione Granger, the best in our year."

Transfiguration was a success as well. With Tom's advice from the previous night, she was able to turn the beetles into buttons on the first try. He was right—magic was all about intent. As long as she pictured the beetles morphing to buttons and thought of her wand as the catalyst, she could master the spell easily. Before, she just thought magic was about incantations and wand movements, and she did see a connection in the sort of floating grace that Wingardium Leviosa possessed or the jabbing motion of Alohamora.

But really it was about using your magic, power, and _desire_ to change your environment.

After lunch, she, Harry and Ron sat in the courtyard, and she propped open _Voyages with Vampires_ in order to try to convince Tom that Gilderoy Lockhart was legitimate. Colin Creevey, a new Gryffindor tried to accost Harry. She thought it funny how Harry was so shy about his fame.

_One of my friends reminds me of you. However, he does not have delusions that he could slay a whole coven of vampires like you. He's actually quite humble. _

_**D**_**oes this friend have a name, or should I simply call him my doppelgänger? **

Hermione paused. If she didn't offer his name, Tom would be suspicious, and she wanted him to keep telling her how to perform magic better. However, if she slipped up, she felt that Tom was smart enough to easily catch her.

_His name is Neville Longbottom. _

**Longbottom? Well, good to know that the pureblood name carries on into a "humble" vessel. How good of friends are you with Neville? **

_We're close. He's an orphan as well, that's why I said he reminded me of you. He had to live with his muggle aunt and uncle who were apparently very mean to him. _

**Mu-**for the first time, Tom scratched out his own writing. A jolt passed through Hermione. Was he sitting in a room somewhere, actually writing into a similar book? The error made his presence more real. –**ggles like that should not be allowed to raise magical children. The orphanage was horrible to me, and I shall never forget how they treated me. **

_But not all muggles are… _

She stopped writing. Didn't she tell Tom that she wrote with a penname because she hated her muggle father? She couldn't be too friendly towards muggles if she didn't want Tom knowing all sorts of things about her. Plus, he was a Slytherin, so he probably wouldn't be excited to teach her if he knew she was muggleborn.

**Not all bad? I respectfully disagree, Hermione. Time and time again, I have only been met with disappointment. First my muggle father who abandoned my mother, then the orphanage, then there were the muggles who almost destroyed wizarding Britain during the war. **

Hermione had forgotten that Tom was a student during World War II. She could understand that he would be upset with the muggle world afterwards, and given his less than illustrious experience with muggle guardians, it made sense why he was bitter.

_I know. I feel the same way. _

She closed the book again and sighed. She didn't feel the same way, but Tom was half right that Muggles had done many bad things. However, wizards were not saints either. Voldemort and Grindelwald were prime examples. They both subscribed to the blood purification message of discriminating against muggles and muggleborns.

People like herself.

Nevertheless, if she wanted Tom to keep teaching her magic, she'd have to accept his argument. It wasn't as if it was like Malfoy's horrible sneers or Marcus Flint's habit of targeting muggleborns on the Quidditch pitch…

Defense Against the Dark Arts was horrible in that Tom was completely right about Lockhart. After scoring a perfect mark on his pop quiz, Hermione had proceeded to witness a grown wizard release one hundred Cornish pixies into a classroom with no idea how to contain them. A small ball of anticipation unraveled itself into disappointment in her stomach. She had thought that Lockhart was a master of the Dark Arts, someone who knew so much about defeating different creatures. Instead, he was a buffoon.

Harry and Ron were pleased to see she had come around. "Yes, well, I didn't have a crush on him like you two said," Hermione huffed. The trio went back up to the common room and Hermione retired to her bed to begin her Transfiguration essay, consulting Tom whenever she needed help explaining a bit of theory.

After she rewrote her essay in her best handwriting, she lay on her stomach, absent-mindedly writing her name on spare parchment. _Hermione Jean. Hermione Jean. Hermione Jean Granger. Hermione Granger. _

When she woke up the next morning, she realized she had fallen asleep on Tom's book, which hummed and buzzed with a warm energy.

_I have to stop writing to you, _she scribbled,_ I should be going to classes instead of talking with you about them! _

**I'm not to blame for your poor time management, Hermione. **She noticed how he wrote her name, slanted with an embellished "H" and made a note to try to write it like that on her next assignment.

**I haven't even started to teach you one percent of what I know. You have just seen a glimpse of what knowledge I have. If you're truly a Ravenclaw, you know that I can show you how to ensnare magic and render death, bewitch the senses and seduce the mind. **

A chill danced down Hermione's spine. She could hear a deep, lingering voice saying those words, reverberating. She did want to know everything she could. Oh how she desperately wanted to know everything she could!

The next few days passed without event. Harry had his first Quidditch practice, and so she and Ron trekked to the Quidditch pitch to watch Wood practice his finely-tuned sadism. Well, Ron watched the finely-tuned sadism. Hermione was now going through _Travelling with Trolls,_ furiously marking up the pages with comments and questions. It had now become a personal project of hers to expose Lockhart for lying about his escapades. She wrote little notes in her planner while Ron shot annoyed glances at her.

"Hermione, do you go anywhere without that book? I bet it's your love letter to Lockhart, isn't it?" he said, giving the planner a dirty look.

"I told you Ron. I'm going to prove that there's no way Lockhart could have written these books. But that's going to take lots of research—he certainly knows a lot, and if they were someone else's stories, he would have been exposed by-" she paused and a gleam of satisfaction was born in her eyes. What if he had sworn them all to secrecy? There could be magical vows, and that was even more illegal than just stealing a story! She turned to Ron.

Ron wasn't paying attention anymore. In fact, he was now down on the pitch in what appeared to be a duel with Draco Malfoy.

"Eat slugs, Malfoy!" Ron yelled, and was knocked backwards by the force of his own wand.

_Tom, do you happen to know the countercurse to a curse that makes you spew slugs? _

**Who did that to you? **

_Not to me, one of my friends. The countercurse? _

**Remember, Hermione, intent. Try to remove the curse through sheer will rather than through exposing words. Neville in trouble again?**

_Great load of help you are. And no, this is one of my other friends. _She paused. _Oliver Wood. _

**Neville Longbottom and Oliver Wood? Sounds positively Dickensian. **

Hermione gave a girlish giggle and put the planner away. Ron and Harry had gone over to the side of the pitch and she ran to catch up with them.

"Ronald Weasley! Why on earth did you pick a fight with those boys?" she huffed, "Hold still." She tried to practice what Tom said and willed the curse to stop working. Ron belched up another slug and Harry moved into her, breaking her concentration.

She tried again, and unconsciously moved her hand so it rested on top of Tom's book. She felt a jolt of power fly up her arm into her wand arm and through towards Ron. He staggered a bit, but no slugs came up.

"Wow, Hermione! How did you do that?" Harry asked, his eyes wide. He stared at her wand and then back at Ron.

"Yeah, Hermione, how on earth did you do that? You didn't say a thing!" Ron said, giving her a funny look.

She took her hand off of Tom's book and shook her bushy hair impetuously. "If you would pay attention more to your studies, maybe you could learn a thing or two!" she sniffed.

That was a blatant lie. Non-verbal casting wasn't done until sixth year. And she didn't want to think that she only did it because she was taking lessons from a sixth-year Slytherin _in a book_. With Ron's prime display of inter-house unity a few minutes before, she couldn't imagine his reaction upon finding out about Tom.

That night, she talked with Tom about _Hogwarts, A History._ She said that she found the history of the castle fascinating and the architectural parts as well. Apparently, Tom had done a lot of exploring when he was a student, and he told her of several passages and rooms that Hermione hadn't known existed.

**I haven't even told you about the best one though. There is a room in Hogwarts filled with thousands of lost treasures. Piled to the ceiling. Jewelry, wands, and books, books to the sky. **

Hermione tried to imagine such a room and found she couldn't. Everything in Hogwarts seemed so orderly and old-fashioned. Could there really be a sort of Hogwarts attic?

**It was one of my secrets when I was at Hogwarts. I believe that only I know where it is. **

_Where is it, Tom? It's not very nice to talk about something like that and not tell me where it is. _

There was a long pause and Tom began to draw a map. The ink stretched out into corridors and rooms, and she could see a tapestry unfold. The one on the seventh floor! She had seen that before.

**This is where it is, but it takes a special person to see the room. The door only appears to those who are worthy. **

_I find that highly unbelievable. _

**You don't think me worthy? After all I've helped you with during the past day? I believe that your friend Oliver would still be exuding slugs if it were not for my incredible dominion over magic. **

_You're a Slytherin. Of course you're unworthy. _

The ink gave a red sheen. Was it the light? Hermione pressed her fingers to it although it didn't come off.

**You speak more like a Gryffindor than a Ravenclaw. Why should you think Slytherin unworthy? **

Hermione realized her mistake. She _wasn't_ acting like a rational, smart Ravenclaw. She was letting prejudice get in the way. The Slytherin house of fifty years ago could have been much different. She hadn't had a chance to look up Tom in the library yet because of the busyness of the week, but she couldn't just judge him on the small sample of his present housemates she'd seen thus far.

_I don't. I just think Ravenclaw is the best. Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure, _Hermione wrote, quoting the words _Hogwarts, A History _said to be on Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem.

**Page 352 of **_**Hogwarts, a History. **_

_I know. _

**I would have to say, that means to an end is man's greatest friend. Although, that may just be the 'unworthy' Slytherin in me. Go to sleep, Hermione, so you don't blame me in the morning. **

_Goodnight, Tom. _

Hermione closed the book and felt guilty. She should try to look at the houses more evenly—Tom was right about that. The actual qualities of Slytherin were things that she had and Harry had too. She turned over and put the book under her pillow. And really, how could someone that knew _Hogwarts, a History_ as well as she did be bad?

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Well, well… Hermione begins to view Tom as a person rather than a dark magic artifact. However, much of the events are progressing the same.

This will be a long, drawn-out fic if you haven't been able to discern as such. There's nothing I dislike more than stories where the characters immediately change all of their values upon meeting one another. I've especially notice it happen in the HG/TR realm with time-turner fics in which Hermione forgets her whole previous life just because Tom Riddle is a good looking guy. There's a lot more going on under there. /rant

As always, reviews are welcome, nay, encouraged!


	3. Friends of the Heir, Beware

**Chapter Three: Friends of the Heir, Beware**

* * *

><p>October came, and with it, the growing respect and hesitation of the Hogwarts Staff concerning Hermione Granger.<p>

Hermione had begun to notice a difference in how the faculty treated her. She had stopped raising her hand quite so _insistently_, and she realized with some embarrassment that her teachers liked her much more for it. Professor Snape had even gave her five points in Potions class when he cold-called on her ("I am ecstatic to discover, Miss Granger, that you have learned the immeasurable value of a restrained tongue.")

She didn't know exactly _why_ she didn't feel the need to provide every answer. It just seemed undignified, unbecoming. As she progressed in her mastery of spell theory during her conversations with Tom, she liked to fashion herself more and more as coolly intelligent rather than as a blustery know-it-all.

However, she was really 'knowing it all' more and more each day. Tom had devised a study plan for each subject with heavy emphasis in Defense Against the Dark Arts since Lockhart was revealing himself as more and more incompetent (although Hermione would still blush when he called on her in class). After only a little more than six weeks, Hermione was now working her way through third-year Transfiguration spells and learning about Dementors and Werewolves. She found the history of Werewolf discrimination fascinating and began to despise the Ministry of Magic for its classification of lycanthropes as 'half-breeds.' Tom agreed with her and said that one of his goals when he was at school was legal emancipation of downtrodden magical creatures, an ambition that deeply impressed Hermione.

However, the subject that most interested her was the history of Hogwarts from other perspectives. While _Hogwarts, a History _remained her favorite book, Tom had recommended several biographies of the Founders. He even told her where to find an account written about the building of the castle and its early years, complete with animated drawings of Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin, each smiling with an arm around the other's waist (bizarrely enough, it was in the Restricted Section, but Lockhart gave her a signed note with barely a batted eyelash). One passage was particularly interesting, and she had copied it out to Tom and asked his opinion.

_Salazar Slytherin was purported to discriminate against Muggleborn students, only allowing those with at least two magical grandparents as admits to his house. While the requirement was true, Slytherin did not hold his views for fear of discovery by Muggles, but rather because he excelled in certain brands of magic that required hereditary skills and early development such as Divination, Parseltongue, and Dark Magic. What many of his critics took to be irrational hatred of Muggles actually was merely vanity. _

Hermione felt disappointed when she read that paragraph, as she wanted to study Divination as one of her third year electives. She even felt a tinge of disappointment when she read that Dark Magic was hereditary—not because she wanted to practice it—but because it was a form of knowledge she would never quite be able to grasp according to this book.

Tom said that he agreed with Slytherin's views and that those with long histories of magical blood would be stronger than those without. However, Hermione was glad to discover that Tom wasn't a complete hypocrite—he admitted that those with non-magical genealogy could learn other forms of magic just as well. No, Tom seemed to hate Muggles because of his time in the orphanage and Muggleborns because they often could not see Muggles' 'inherently dangerous nature.' Hermione, who had always been a supporter of peace and equality, found herself agreeing when Tom would rail against the Muggle world's capability of destroying Wizarding Kind (although she didn't appreciate his dark appreciation of the Grindelwald's campaign.)

She began to spend more time with Tom's reading list and his opinions on history than her actual studies, although she was, of course, still top in her class. However, Hermione's quieter form of bibliophilia provoked fights with her two best friends to a point until it came to a fore one October evening.

"Hermione, why don't you say anything in class?" Ron asked, mouth full of pudding.

"We're kind of worried about you, Hermione. Has Malfoy done anything to scare you?" Harry asked with a look of deep concern.

Of course Harry would think Malfoy was behind her new classroom behavior. How could she tell them that she was being quiet because she had finally found someone to talk with who impossibly loved knowledge and magic more than her? How could she tell them that she was quiet because she was _listening _to a boy who knew something about everything?

"No, nothing's wrong," Hermione said, flipping the page of her book distractedly. She looked up at the two boys who were now fidgeting uncomfortably. "There is nothing wrong. I simply think that other students should have a chance to answer questions."

Harry and Ron shared a disbelieving look.

"No one else knows the answers Hermione," Ron said emphatically, "You're just losing points for Gryffindor."

"I'll have you know that Professor Snape actually gave me points last class, Perhaps I just want to encourage you two to open a book instead of relying on me to do your work for you!" Hermione said quite loudly.

The table quieted to hear the fight, but Hermione gathered her books and walked out of the Great Hall, leaving an incredulous Ron and puzzled Harry. She ran up to the seventh floor corridor in front of the tapestry that Tom had mentioned almost two months ago and paced in front of it. She didn't know how she would be able to find the room, but she needed a place to get away from Harry and Ron's complaints over her new attitude. And to think that she thought they would like the change (especially after Ron's original teasing about her academic exuberance).

With a faint whooshing noise, a door materialized in front of Hermione.

Hermione stared at the newly arrived portal and started to grasp blindly into her school bag. She took out a pen (she had found it more convenient to jot questions and notes to Tom while she was walking from class to class) and triumphantly informed Tom that she had discovered his secret.

_I guess I'm worthy enough for your room, Tom! I just found it. _

She opened the door, but instead of the room of lost treasures that Tom had talked about, there was a room much like the Gryffindor common room. A fire crackled merrily on one end while tapestries and portraits covered the walls—she even saw a four-poster bed near the back.

**Isn't it incredible? I found some of the most amazing books and relics in there. Do you know if the Vanishing Cabinet is still there? **

She ignored Tom and sighed happily, flopping down onto one of the couches. It_ was_ incredible—not the room that Tom had described (which actually sounded like a weird sort of hoarder's paradise), but incredible in that the room knew exactly what she wanted.

_It is great, but not the room you talked about. It looks like the Gryffindor common room actually. _

**And how would you know what the Gryffindor common room looks like? **

Hermione smacked her forehead for her slip. This was at least the third time in the past month that Hermione had made some allusion to Gryffindor. She found that it was best to go on the offense; otherwise, Tom would stop whatever track of conversation they were on in sole pursuit of prying.

_I am sorry to inform you, Tom, that you don't have a monopoly on knowledge._

_S_he consoled herself with the fact that Tom had no idea what the Gryffindor common room looked like despite acting like he owned Hogwarts. Hermione stretched out on the couch for a well-deserved rest, and decided that Harry and Ron would have to edit their _own _Charms essays for once.

* * *

><p>When Hermione awoke, she looked out of the window (did the room even have a window before?) to see the burgeoning dawn. She felt sore and tired and drained. Sighing upon recollection of her fight with Ron and Harry the previous night, Hermione gathered her books before casting a quick <em>Scourgify <em>on her clothing, banishing the dust and dirt from the previous day away. She had to start taking better care of herself, for she had been so caught up in her exciting quest for knowledge that the basic acts of brushing her hair or eating lunch seemed unnecessary.

There was an hour before breakfast, so Hermione decided to do something that she had been meaning to do for quite some time: figure out who exactly Tom Marvolo Riddle was.

This meant the library.

Hermione crept down a side staircase to the library, sneaking past a snoozing Madam Pince into the archives. She started pulling out the yearbooks for the 1940s, and soon found Tom Riddle in 1944. It was really impossible not to—the whole yearbook seemed to be devoted to him. He was not only Head Boy, but also was featured in numerous pictures with six other boys—mostly Slytherins- and a rotund, jovial looking man named "Horace Slughorn."

Because of his Head Boy status, Riddle got an entire page to himself, which featured a headshot, his impressive N.E.W.T. scores, and several moving photographs of Tom receiving a Special Service to the School award (although it didn't say what for—Hermione would have to ask). A less-wrinkled Professor Dumbledore moved in and out of the last pictures, smiling in a half-hearted manner Hermione had never seen before on the headmaster's face.

Hermione looked at Tom's headshot and thought that she would describe him as an older, more handsome Harry. _Not more handsome, more orderly, _Hermione corrected. Instead of Harry's messy mop, Riddle's black hair swept itself in an immaculate wave, and Riddle had a look of self-assuredness that Hermione had yet to see on Harry's face off of his broomstick.

Hermione smiled with relief at proving Tom's existence; now she could convince herself that she wasn't daft for writing in a book that wrote back. However, she wondered why she hadn't heard of him before. With those N.E.W.T. scores and a hefty list of accomplishments and awards, it seemed anticlimactic that he would disappear into anonymity. She took out her quill and ink and decided to ask Tom what he wanted to be when he grew older; maybe she could find the real Tom Riddle if she had an idea of what field he studied or job he held.

_Tom, I finally found out you actually existed, although I'm still not sure you're not going to corrupt my soul. _

**Of course I existed, and I think we have established that I am not going to "corrupt your soul." Let me guess, you went to the library archives and found me in the yearbook. **

_What else do you expect from a Ravenclaw? I'm quite jealous of your N.E.W.T. scores. Why didn't you mention them? Or that you won a Special Services to the School Award? _

**Some of us are humble about our accomplishments and don't write home every time our Potions Instructor gives us five points for answering a question correctly. So humble, in fact, that we discover secret magical rooms in Hogwarts that no one else knows about and yet **_**still **_**don't feel the need to boast or brag. **

Hermione winced. She supposed she had been a bit obnoxious about the hidden room behind the tapestry, but she couldn't help it. For all the jealousy Hermione held for Tom's intimate knowledge of Hogwarts, at least she was living. He was trapped in that book for the rest of eternity while Hermione could actually feel the pages of the books that he so vividly described, could actually see the castle he so dearly loved.

**But I suppose I can tell you why I won the Special Service award. I assume you've the book about the Hogwarts Founders I recommended. Do you remember the chapter on the Chamber of Secrets? **

_Salazar Slytherin's secret chamber? Yes, it was rumoured to have contained a horrible monster, but I thought it was just a legend. All of that occurred one thousand years ago, and you said yourself that Slytherin was painted a scapegoat for all manner of things. _

**I thought it was a legend as well. The professors said it was a legend…that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me that nice, shiny engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. **

_But that's horrible! Why wouldn't they want to know that a monster was running loose around the school?_

**Professor Dumbledore wanted to protect the student who controlled the monster. **

A loud shriek pierced the library. Hermione dropped Tom's book into her bag and rushed out the entrance to see Madam Pince hovering over a still form on the staircase below. Hermione swung around the corner to get a glimpse and saw that Justin Finch-Fletchley was lying, unmoving on the ground. Madam Pince, a woman of normally stoic demeanor, sat gasped a strange, racked sob. Behind Justin, a message was scrawled in red ink.

_**THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE. **_

Hermione realized with a sickening jolt that the liquid was not ink, but blood.

She stood there, in the shadows where Madam Pince couldn't see her, biting her hand. This was exactly what Tom said had happened when he was at Hogwarts! She felt paralyzed, petrified and drained of all energy, but she had to help some way. "Madam Pince, what happened?" she said, dropping her bag and rushing down the stairs to crouch over Justin. Madam Pince just sobbed and kept repeating, "Not again, not again."

Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape were quick to arrive, and after a minute of hushed discussion, Professor Dumbledore informed Hermione and Madam Pince that he would take Justin to hospital wing. Students were starting to file down to breakfast, and a crowd began to gather on the landing where Justin lay. Hermione looked up through tears to see Harry and Ron ambling down a few floors up, and after picking up her dropped bag, she ran up to meet them.

"Hermione, why are all those people milling around down there?" Ron asked as he saw her approaching. She shook her head and pushed them onto the third floor corridor that only last year had held Fluffy and the Sorcerer's Stone.

"Hermione? What's the matter?" Harry and Ron asked in unison. Hermione told them about how she found Justin (not why she was in the library), what she knew of the Chamber of Secrets (not who she learned it from), and the history of what happened last time it was opened (not who saved the school last time). In fact, the whole account was a startling exercise in omitting Tom's presence. Harry held his head in his hands like he was trying to forget something, and Ron looked at Harry with a meaningful, "You should tell her," sort of glance.

"Hermione, I think I heard whatever hurt Justin….that night when I had detention with Lockhart. I heard this voice saying things like 'rip', 'tear' and…" Harry gulped, "and kill." Hermione looked at Harry and felt a pang of sadness. Why hadn't Harry told her? She knew that she hadn't spent that much time with her two best friends, but Harry had always told her when his scar hurt or…Hermione realized that Harry wasn't trying to forget something. No, his scar hurt, and _he was trying to hide it. _

"Harry, when were you going to tell me that your scar was hurting again? That could be very serious—remember, it hurt when you were with Professor Quirrell, and V-Voldemort was possessing him!" Hermione lectured. She honestly couldn't believe that Harry would keep something like that from her, especially after all the trials they had faced together last year. Harry shook his head and mumbled something, and Ron declared that breakfast would do everybody some good. Huffing, Hermione turned around and went unwillingly to the Great Hall with more questions than ever before.

* * *

><p>Once Hermione's mind had cleared a bit, she decided to tell Tom that the Chamber had opened once more. He would be the best way of finding out who the murderer was as the catcher of the culprit.<p>

_Tom, something really awful just happened. _

She bit the end of her quill.

**Did you see that awful picture in the yearbook of me with Slughorn and Merrythought? Slughorn never knew just how infatuated he was with me…**

_The Chamber of Secrets… someone has opened it again. Who was the original person who did it? You have to tell me-one of my friends, he's dead now. _

**Let me show you. **

Hermione blinked at the offer. Tom had offered to "show" her Hogwarts the first time she wrote to him, and she had refused. She couldn't have trusted a book straight away, even if it did have magical powers, and to be honest, she didn't trust Tom just yet. However, for Justin's sake, she _had_ to learn about the Chamber, and more importantly, who opened it.

_Okay. _

And with a blinding flash of white light, Hermione disappeared into her planner.

* * *

><p><strong>AUTHOR NOTE:<strong> And so the Chamber opens! Now is where the dialogue will become more interesting in that Hermione will actually see Tom in the next chapter (although, it will be like Harry's experience—one-way interaction) and thus begin to trust him more when she should be trusting him less. Also, because Tom has his foot in the door, it's going to become a bit deeper, a bit darker. He had to play non-threatening homework helper, but that's not really his modus operandi. Hope everyone liked the chapter-review with your thoughts!


	4. I Cannot Resist Temptation

**Disclaimer:**

_I do not own this plot. _

_I do not own these characters. _

_What I do possess is a thought,_

_Borne from better creators. _

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four: The Only Thing I Cannot Resist is Temptation<strong>

Tom Marvolo Riddle was _furious_ when Hermione Granger first wrote in his diary. He knew all about that meddling Mudblood after Lucius Malfoy had written in the book three months prior. Hermione Granger: best in her year, of no magical parentage, and _best friends with the boy-who-killed-him. _Lucius had ranted about her academic triumphs over his son, and Tom swiftly argued that while Draco Malfoy would be ecstatic if Hermione Granger was the one he possessed, he ultimately needed a Pureblood or half-blood to control the basilisk easily.

No, he needed someone that was close to Harry Potter, but not too close. He needed a Pureblood Gryffindor who would be out of suspicion once the Chamber opened, and so he trusted Malfoy to deliver him to such an individual. Malfoy had suggested a Weasley, a blood traitor family known for their lack of wits, and Tom had hesitantly agreed to be planted in one of the Weasley's possessions.

However, when Hermione Jean Granger opened his diary and "possessed" him, he couldn't help but bitterly laugh at life's cruel irony. Of course Lucius would royally ruin his plans and give him to a smart, annoyingly curious Mudblood. However, he was only one-half of the present Lord Voldemort's soul, and for that matter, trapped in the pages of an old, ratty book. So, he had to improvise, weaving the story of being a 'homework planner' and keeping Granger invested so that perhaps, one day, he could try to open the Chamber again.

What he hadn't expected was how irritatingly suspicious Granger would be. She constantly lied to him about peoples' names, her own name, the Professors, and what she thought about his more _controversial _opinions. He could scarcely believe it when she agreed that Muggles were a danger to Wizarding kind. Tom, for all of his carefully constructed charm and wiles, could not tell if she actually believed that or was just flattering him so that he would continue his rough-shod teaching course.

As throughout his Hogwarts career, Tom survived and kept Granger's interest through wit and flattery. It was a softer type of power, one that he had begun to abandon in his sixth year once he started to use more _physical _forms against his Knights of Walpurgis. It was the power of words and vague promises, of intellectual vanity and grand ambitions.

**Oh… yes, Hermione. You could become the most **_**powerful**_** witch the world has ever seen. Feel the magic caress the blood in your veins, swiveling and twisting like two dying lovers. Feel it **_**overtaking **_**your weak, delicate body only to crash in a cymbalic ecstasy and flutter over your lolled-back eyes. Sense it trickling from your wand into the recesses of your mind, your deliciously brilliant, dark mind. **

Tom was a master, and the diary was his weapon. Each time she wrote in the diary, he could infuse those words of seduction into his banal statements. Each "**How was your day?" **was secretly a display of that sumptuous power he had learned to control so long ago. While he had originally made the diary as a _diary_, to feed on the written emotions of the owner in order to gain a corporeal form, he found the only way that he could gain strength from Granger was to use that soft form of power. She had to see him as harmless, but feel wanted, worthy and most of all, feel that Tom was helping her to attain the knowledge she so pitifully craved.

_Tom, were you a good dueler when you were at Hogwarts? _

Tom smirked when she had written him that question. Was he a good dueler? Was he, Lord Voldemort, the most-feared name in the Wizarding world, a "good dueler"?

**I won my fair share of duels. Let me surmise a guess: you want to join the school Dueling Club? **

Tom relished the opportunity to teach Granger dueling spells. Adrenaline was a potent hormone—and the more that he could throw her into dangerous situations, the more she would run to the very person she should dearly avoid. At least that's what he told himself, and Lord Voldemort is nothing but honest.

However… there was another reason he didn't mind playing 'homework planner' and 'Ravenclaw Tom.' It was a small part of _who he was. _Magic fascinated him for its own sake. When he first opened the Chamber and learned of Salazar Slytherin's legacy, Tom could not help but feel ecstatic beatitude as centuries' old magic coursed through the walls, through the basilisk, and through himself. He wanted to master it, wanted to use magic to master every single one of life's obstacles, wanted to use magic to control people, wanted to _know the truth. _

And Hermione Granger did too. She was the only person Tom had met who understood the all-consuming need to _know _things, to constantly absorb, plan, plot, scheme, craft, spell, control, devise, divine, and illuminate. It was a maddening desire, but losing it would be worse. And that is why Tom Marvolo Riddle decided to kill his father in order to live forever.

However, he could only live forever and fulfill Salazar's legacy of the preservation of the old branches of magic by releasing the basilisk, and a dirty vessel such as Hermione Granger would regrettably have to do. After she had a fight with her two imbecilic friends, Harry Potter and the Weasley boy (as if he would be fooled by shallow pseudonyms), he quietly possessed the young girl as she drifted off into a restless sleep.

She had found his room, the Room of Hidden Things, but had used it in a different way so that it was a comfortable hideaway. He would have to remember to return it back to the exact way he found it so that Granger wouldn't panic or realize she was being possessed. He examined her wand, shaking his head at how _wrong_ it felt in his hands. He cast a disillusionment charm on himself and silently made his way down to the girls' bathroom on the second floor and into the tunnel to the Chamber.

Tom banished the basilisk skins and rat skeletons as he went, disgusted with how derelict the place had become since his last visit. When he arrived at the antechamber, he brushed his hand and spoke the Parseltongue for 'open,' and watched with the closest thing he had ever felt to glee as the Chamber was revealed. Now he could rise to glory…fifty years after the first try, he would finally _get it right, _and all because of a silly little Mudblood girl.

He saw her reflection in the water, a warped reflection as his twisted smirk looked positively sinful on her face. It was a thing of beauty. Tom stared at Granger's countenance with something close to awe—he could control everything this girl did. He could make her into whatever he wanted, and that power _thrilled _him.

However, he had to get down to business as the basilisk certainly wouldn't call itself. He invoked the name of Slytherin and the basilisk slithered out of the orifice, contentedly hissing at Tom's call.

_Massssster… I have waiting sssso long, _the basilisk hissed, coming to a rest at Tom's feet. _But why do you have ssuch dirty blood? It smellssss sssso good. Issss ssshe a sssssacrifice? _Tom shook his head and whispered that she was the best he could do at such short notice. Then, he sent the orders that in six hours, the basilisk should look for a Mudblood near the second floor in front of the library to finish the cleansing he started as a young boy all those years ago. Meanwhile, he would scrawl and enchant the warning message to appear when the Mudblood was discovered, and then he would return to the Room of Hidden Things and try to figure out how to put Granger back as he had found her.

After taking nearly a pint of Granger's blood to write the 'Beware' message and after an hour of pacing back and forth before realizing that he could wish for other rooms rather than the Room of Hidden Things (how handy it would have been for Knights of Walpurgis meetings), Tom settled Granger down and returned to the diary, ecstatic that his plan had worked so perfectly.

Now came the difficult part. Granger was not so invested that he could take on a corporeal form. No, she was only invested enough for a brief possession. In order to regain his body, he would have to convince her to trust him completely and absolutely. He would have to peel back each layer of lies and security that she had forged and have her confide in him the truth of her person. While Tom had thought it would be tedious, after seeing himself use her to open the Chamber, he was actually _looking forward _to this gambit.

The chance came earlier than he had hoped. The next morning, who should bring up the topic of the Chamber but Granger herself? He briefly wondered if the basilisk was able to do its job properly as apparently Hermione was in the library looking up pictures of him in the archives (how could she have _not _seen a mangled, petrified body on the landing?) He fed her the egregious lie of his heroism and was shocked to realize that Hermione actually wanted to _see _the story. After six weeks of cold indifference and being unknowingly possessed, she _wanted _to go inside the diary to see Tom Riddle's act of death-defying bravery.

Tom reached out the magic of the diary and tore the girl down into the Horcrux. She would be powerless. She would see his side, his perfectly crafted, aesthetically ecstatic, fool-proof account that everyone except Dumbledore took as gospel.

And then he would be able to control Hermione Granger to form his new world order. He would have her heart, mind, and yes, her utterly corruptible soul.

* * *

><p><strong>AUTHOR'S NOTE:<strong> And so the first of Tom's chapters (sorry for leaving everyone at that cliffhanger, but I desperately wanted to write Tom's perspective). I believe that the character requires it, for no other reason than genius needs an audience. I am super-excited about this story (if you can't tell… the updates have been, shall we say, exuberantly frequent?) Please review with your thoughts, suggestions, and criticism.


	5. The Desire to be Controlled

**Disclaimer:**

I do not own this universe.

I do not own this pair.

What I do own is a desire,

To expunge a hellish nightmare

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5: The Desire to be Controlled<br>**

**"All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation." ~ W.H. Auden  
><strong>

After what seemed like an hour of spinning uncontrollably, Hermione Granger gently landed on the hardwood floors of the Hogwarts Library. She stood up quickly and drew her wand. The library was deserted—even the desk where Madam Pince sat hawkishly watching students lay abandoned. She tiptoed through the stacks until she saw the darkish form of a student hunched over a book near the restricted section.

The figure set the book down on the table and began copying furiously. Hermione moved silently, approaching the student from the aisle over, and gasped to see the boy she had looked up in the library earlier that day—Tom Riddle himself. He looked a little younger than the picture in the yearbook and healthier. His face was not so pale and his cheeks were not so hollow, but it was unmistakably him. Hermione noticed a shiny silver Prefect's badge glinting on his robes—Slytherin—of course.

Hermione tentatively moved forward and cleared her throat, but Tom didn't notice anything besides the book he was utterly _fascinated_ with.

"Hello? Tom?" Hermione whispered. No response. Hermione realized that Tom couldn't hear her, for this was a memory of some sort, like she had read about with Pensieves. She could see Tom and what he did, but he couldn't see her.

But Tom was muttering to himself and Hermione leaned closer to hear.

"Yes, this very well could be the monster… Why didn't I come up with this before? I must tell Dippet…"

And with that, Tom took the piece of parchment he was writing on and swept away towards the library exit. Hermione turned the book towards her to read "_Acromantulas: Beast or Being?"_ So this is what Tom had discovered the monster to be! She ran after him and followed him to Dumbledore's office, barely making it as the statue moved to cover the entrance.

Tom smartly knocked on the door and a weak, wheezy voice responded. As they both entered, Hermione saw a short, ancient wizard looking out of the window.

"This is terrible business, Tom," the old man, who Hermione supposed to be Armando Dippet, said shakily.

"I have some idea of what the…monster…. could be, Headmaster," Tom said carefully. "If the attacks stopped, then…then…would it be possible for me to stay at Hogwarts over the holiday for research?"

Dippet looked alarmed. "Do you mean to say that you know who the attacker is, Tom?"

"No," Tom said hurriedly, but Hermione could tell that Tom actually did know. For being a Slytherin, he was a fairly bad liar, but Hermione couldn't help but beam at Tom's wish to stay to do research.

"Well, actually sir, I think I might know who is behind it. But, I don't think he meant it-it's just, well I think he thought of the creature who has been attacking students as, well, _as a pet_," Tom spat out the last few words.

"A pet? Merlin, Tom. Who is the student?" Dippet asked desperately.

Tom looked as if divulging this information was physically painful, but he looked at Dippet determinedly.

"Rubeus Hagrid, sir, a Gryffindor third year."

Hermione gasped. So that's why Hagrid had been expelled! Harry had mentioned a few times before, but Hermione had never seriously wondered as to why. But.. Tom had said that it was just his pet…that must have been the acromantula. Hermione had no trouble believing that Hagrid would've cared for a creature like that in the castle what with Norbert and Fluffy and God knows what else he had raised.

Dippet looked ashen and with a weak flicker of his hand sent Tom away. Hermione followed Tom to an empty classroom, where she witnessed him telling Hagrid that enough was enough. He had found out his secret and told the professors, and with another blinding white flash of light, Hermione found herself sitting on her bed in Gryffindor common room.

_Hagrid? But, it can't be Hagrid. Hagrid is__ not__ the heir of Slytherin—he was a Gryffindor! _

**I don't know how or why he opened the Chamber, but his creature was definitely the one responsible for the attacks. After Hagrid was expelled, the attacks stopped. **

Hermione didn't want to admit that she could perfectly imagine Hagrid finding the monster and wanting to care for it, but something didn't seem right. Why would Hagrid wait fifty years to open it again, especially after facing such consequences the first time?

**Anyway, I believe that some of your hesitation comes from Gryffindor solidarity. You haven't been perfectly forthright with me. **

How did Tom figure it out? Could he see her in the memory, robes emblazoned with the Gryffindor crest?

**Only a Gryffindor would care so deeply about a victim.**

_But the Hat did want to put me in Ravenclaw._

**I'm sure it did what with your all-consuming, dare I say it, obsessive passion for knowledge. I take it that "Neville" and "Oliver" are Gryffindors as well? **

_Yes. Their names are actually Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. _Hermione felt strangely bad for lying to Tom, especially after he had shown her how he had solved the mystery of the Chamber.

**No matter. Why should I care what you call your foolhardy friends? I'm glad you have decided to trust me. **

Hermione did trust Tom. She had researched him, learned from him, and actually saw him in the flesh (or, well, in the planner). Even though she was generally a cautious, smart girl, there was no reason not to trust Tom. But now she had something larger to confront: the fact that Justin Finch-Fletchley was dead and that she was one of the only people in the school to know what killed him.

_Tom, there is something else. I'm frightened because…well because I am Muggleborn as well. _

There was no response from Tom, and she could feel the book pulse with a warm energy-anger? Hermione groaned and threw herself back on her bed. She should _not _have told him. All Slytherins were the same—obsessed with their heritage and inbreeding—now he would stop teaching and mentor-

**That's absolutely fine, Hermione. As you know, I'm half-blood myself and was frightened as well when the monster was released. It would be hypocritical of me to think you less worthy. But you must be cautious. If the monster is indeed roaming the halls of Hogwarts, who knows what type of danger you might be in…**

Hermione stared at the pages and began to cry softly. Why couldn't all of Hogwarts think that she was just as worthy? Why did someone want to harm and kill people like her? She could do magic just as well as any pureblood. _She hadn't come across a spell she couldn't do. _So why was there a monster that existed for the sole purpose of hurting her and Justin and all of the other Muggleborn students in the school?

_I'll be careful. _

She closed the planner, which now was humming merrily with magic and put it under her pillow. She felt utterly lost and confused and terrified. If this monster was indeed in the school, killing Muggleborns, then she was in terrible danger. What's more, would the school be closed down? What would happen if another student died? What if it would be her?

* * *

><p>The next morning, Hermione arose to a cold, drizzly sky. She had overslept her first class of the day—History of Magic—and for the first time in her life, she did not panic at missing a class. She lied in her bed, watching the raindrops dribble down the crosshatched pane and then opened Tom's book.<p>

_Tom, what should I do? How can I stop the monster? How can I protect myself from it? _

**I can teach you how to defend yourself. I can teach you how to kill the monster. But it will be hard. As you know, dark creatures can be very, very strong. You need powerful spells to defeat them. **

_I'll learn them. I can't have another one of my friends die. _

**Of course not. Now, go to the room you went to last night. We can begin practicing there. **

Hermione felt a flood of gratitude towards Tom. A part of her snidely remarked that he had to talk with her, as he was a book with nothing else to do, but even after learning she was a Muggleborn, he was willing to teach her. Hermione hadn't felt accepted like that since her run-in with the Troll last Halloween.

Hermione went to the room, wand out in preparation of attack, and spent the rest of the class period she had missed practicing the spells Tom outlined for her.

**Incarcerous – to bind, sends out heavy thick ropes at an opponent. Move your wand in an infinity motion and jab to the left. Although, as we've discussed, intent is all that matters. **

Hermione easily mastered the spell, binding a lamp and crushing it into pieces.

**Confringo – to blast, explodes the target. Sharp "z" movement with slight movement downwards near the end. **

Hermione sent the curse at a small table and shielded her face as it exploded with a fiery blaze. It reminded her of the raw feeling she had gotten when she had first tried her wand at Ollivander's, a sort of loss of control.

_Tom, I think some of these curses are too advanced for me. I'm only a second-year. _

**That's what they tell you so they can control you. You can do anything you wish with magic, can't you?**

At those last two words, Hermione felt a sickening energy rise through her arms, prickling raw nerves,

**Now you're going to need something alive for this next one… so that you can practice properly against the monster. Transfigure something small into a rat. **

Hermione found a small glass and closing her eyes, willed it to transform itself into a rat. Surprisingly, it did.

**Imperio – to control, controls the live object into doing whatever the caster wishes. Small downwards arc, then upwards with resistance. **

Hermione hesitated for a moment. That sounded like an incredibly powerful spell, and she thought that she had heard of it before.

"Imperio…"

She could feel the rat, hear its scattered desires. It was scared, wanted food. It didn't know where it was. She told it to run to the left, and it obeyed as if running to the left was the height of its goals on this earth. She told it to jump, and it did, with such ecstasy that Hermione stepped back in awe.

_She almost wanted to be placed under it. _Everything became so simple for that animal, its desires mandated by some other actor, but Hermione shook her head and lifted the curse. That had to be dark magic. She had read about it, in a purely academic sense, of course, and what was in common with all dark magic was the desire for the caster to use it for the spell's own sake, not for its purpose. The caster didn't necessarily use a curse to hurt someone, but to feel the sensation of casting the spell.

That's why it was so dangerous—it was a wizard's drug.

_Tom. That spell, Imperio. That is very dark magic. It felt, evil…_

**Yes, but it is one of the most useful spells a wizard can perform. Anyone who harbors ill will towards you can be stopped at your beck. Any monster that deigns to injure you will walk away as if nothing had occurred. If you seriously want to defend yourself, you have to put aside your childish notions of good and evil and realize that others will not play by your Gryffindor moral code. **

Hermione cast the spell again. How could she have studied magic for a year without knowing this feeling? It was a sort of manic giddiness, that soaring rush of adrenaline landing behind her eyes. She felt like she could control anything with her jagged wand movements, eyes ablaze with what Tom so innocently called _intent. _

And then she was frightened once more. Just what was Tom? Who did he grow up to be, and why did he know such powerful curses? Why was he teaching them to her? She drew shallow breaths and looked at the planner. Was he just a 16 year-old boy, a hero? She couldn't believe that—he was something much darker, much more calculating and planning. He had easily seen through her fabrications and was now teaching her a very, very dangerous form of dark magic. _A delightful form of dark magic, Hermione. How can something which feels that good, be bad? _Hermione's hand gave a spasm at the thought—the addict's argument.

Hermione felt an odd sensation enter her mind. She realized that it would futile to look up the curse. If Tom had his reasons for using it, then he did, and she would too. She would find out if Hagrid did indeed open the Chamb-. No that wasn't necessary either. Her thoughts became fragmented and disoriented, and the last thing she remembered before falling to the ground was the silken swish of a Slytherin robe.

* * *

><p><em>(<strong>AUTHOR'S NOTE:<strong> Several things I wanted to mention down here, including the changed diary scene and my take on it. I'm working off the assumption that the diary is half of Voldemort's soul (created after the first split) and so has a bit more liberties, including sentience. I think the canon made it pretty clear that Tom Riddle is perfectly capable of manipulating people's experience of the diary, and while Harry was the audience in the series, Hermione is the audience in my story. Therefore, there's not going to be as much emphasis on "I'm an orphan; let me stay at Hogwarts," rather, "I am an intelligent student who figured out this puzzle to protect Muggleborns." A good manipulator knows his audience. _

_Secondly, the dark magic seems a bit quickly introduced, but Hermione is __distraught. __She doesn't know that what she's doing is illegal or that Tom is compelling her to think certain thoughts (an act more easily done because she's gone into the diary.) All she knows is that she's bravely going to go after the monster with Tom's help. And I view addiction as something that some will seek (such as Tom) and something that will change you even if you don't have a predisposition (Hermione). _

_Lastly, this will be Tom/Hermione, but not until later. She's not fascinated with him yet as a person—more as a vessel of knowledge, but that will undoubtedly change. Next chapter: Tom gets a corporeal form for a bit, and changes his strategy. _

_Thank you all for the reviews—and let me know what you think. =D)_


	6. Of Rosewater and Parchment

_I do not own Tom Riddle_

_I do not own Hermione_

_I do own this encounter_

_Which sadly was naught to be _

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter 6: Of Rosewater and Parchment<strong>_

Tom Marvolo Riddle smoothed his hair, patted his robes, and reached for Granger's discarded wand. His hand, transparent and ghostly, passed right through, prompting a quiet curse. _This _is why he specifically had asked Lucius to place him in a Pureblood's care—Granger's blood was not _solvent_ enough for the diary to resurrect his permanent, corporeal form.

He looked down at the girl, this Hermione Granger, who had confided in him, who had entered the diary, who had performed dark magic at his bidding. His mouth brutally curved into a sneer. While she had given him far more resistance than he had ever planned, she could not deafen dark magic's sweet call. She look tired, pale, drawn, like he did whenever he had exerted himself with darker spells. Her hair was messy and frazzled, her hands clenched in bony white fists.

He needed to consider his options.

What did he want? To open the Chamber, to kill Harry Potter, to kill Albus Dumbledore, to kill all of those who had left the other half of his soul to wander aimlessly for twelve years, to help the other part of him, Lord Voldemort. He could accomplish all of those feats if he had a body, but he needed someone to help him with the resurrection.

Granger? She certainly had been willing enough to cast _Imperio_, even if it was out of ignorance and revenge for her Mudblood friend. However, Tom Riddle wasn't _so _confident in his charm as to provoke someone to disembowel herself in a messy blood ritual for a 'homework planner.' But, perhaps he_ could_ convince her that him getting a body would be a good thing, and then, he would just have to wait for the diary to _do its magic. _He might have to kill her posthaste; it wouldn't do to have such a liability wandering around the castle, telling people about the diary, meddling in things that aught not be meddled.

But then again… she could be useful as a pawn. Tom laughed his high, cold laugh. Wouldn't that be one of the greatest turns in history? Harry Potter's best friend: a willing servant of the person who murdered his parents. Hermione Granger: Death Eater in disguise. It would be humiliating to Potter, shameful to Dumbledore, and most of all, sickly hilarious to himself. He would have control over someone who by all means should _hate_ him, _despise _him. Wouldn't it be a testament to how absolutely powerful Lord Voldemort was if some Mudblood girl _wanted _to follow his every whim, untouched by the Imperius Curse, untouched by Amortentia, untouched by everything except his mere presence and person.

Hermione Granger could resurrect him. He knew of a spell, one that required only three ingredients: bone of the father, flesh of the servant, and blood of the enemy. It was his back-up plan in case the Horcrux was ever put in a tricky situation such as this. The bone of father was easily enough procured—he knew where that filthy Muggle was buried. The flesh of the servant would be Granger herself, finally making herself useful in this game. And then blood of the enemy would be her best friend, forcibly imprisoned and utterly clueless as to what would come to pass.

Tom could not put this idea away. Fate had dealt him this hand and he was going to play it in the most perverse way possible. But first he needed to have a chat with Granger. He needed to make her believe he was her friend. Even though he couldn't use her wand, he still could use the magic of the Horcrux inside of him, and so with a rude kick of magic, he enervated Granger. She blearily moaned something unintelligible and sat up, back turned to him.

He cleared his throat.

When Granger saw him, her eyes became wide. Her eyes flitted to the diary to him to the diary again.

"T-Tom?"

"Yes, Hermione?" he said pleasantly, giving her his "Slughorn" smile, a mix of a smirk and teeth. She didn't blush or stare dreamily or do the things that girls of the 1940s normally did when he shot them that smile, although he did suppose she was a bit young for hormones. She just looked at him blankly, and he could see the gears ticking in the back of her head.

"Why are you out of the planner? How is this possible?" she whispered, more to herself than to Tom.

"Don't you think that your training would be best supplemented by an actual dueling partner?" he said carefully, tapping his long pale fingers against the sides of his crossed arms. Granger looked as if she were going to faint.

"But, you look like a ghost…" Granger said, holding her head and looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Tom held back a sneer.

"Well, if you were a more suitable—how shall I put it?—_host?_, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation," he said as an aside. A look of puzzlement passed over her face –God, she was such a Gryffindor!—every emotion so easily displayed. Granger stood up gingerly and gripped the edge of one of the sofas, wand in her other hand; her face flitted between curiosity and anger, suppression and anxiety, before landing on determination.

"All right. Well, don't just stand there. Tell me what I'm doing wrong, Tom," she said in a low voice. Tom arched an eyebrow.

"Yes, well. We were on the Imperius Curse, were we not?" he intoned, and walked around Granger, hands held behind his back. "Say you encounter this monster. You will only have a second to process that you are being attacked, so the motion must become second-nature."

She nodded and bit her lip before flicking her wand in the downwards arc and raising it slightly at the end.

"Don't forget the incantation—you are not nearly strong enough to non-verbally cast spells that are Unfor-" he paused and finished smoothly "-seen." He couldn't have the Granger girl know that he was teaching her one of the Unforgivable Curses (the most mildly regarded, but nevertheless).

"May I?" he gestured to her wand and she hesitantly handed it to him. Surprisingly, it did not pass through his hand, although it still felt _wrong_ to hold it. He examined it. Dragon Heartstring and…Vine? What an unusual combination. He still felt that he could not use the wand against the owner for eventual harm, but a practical demonstration was always a good _academic exercise. _

"_Imperio," _he said strongly, and a glazed look passed over Granger's face.

_-Look at me- Tom commanded, and Granger looked. Her earthy brown eyes were large and dilated, her skin pale and smooth. –Walk over to me- She did in halting steps, futilely trying to resist the curse. –Try to take the wand from my hand- And Tom held it behind his back so that Granger was left trying to grab the wand to no avail. He looked down into her eyes and his mouth cruelly turned upwards in a smile. This was too easy. He could rape her right now and carry her body to the Gryffindor Tower for Potter to find. _

But he couldn't. She had to be a _willing _servant for the resurrection ritual. Plus, he didn't want to sully himself with a Mudblood. _But she's young and pure. _She clearly didn't know the basics of personal grooming. _But she's smart, perhaps even more than yourself. _Tom didn't even know if she had combed her hair during the term. _Think of the control you could have over her. You could make her into something great. You could turn her from Potter to you. _So dirty and impure, Slytherin would roll in his grave if he knew his descendent _was twisting his long, pale fingers through the tresses and tendrils of Hermione's hair, breathing in the scent of rose.  
><em>

He leaned down, one hand touching her cheek lightly. "_You are weak, Hermione Granger," _he whispered delicately, "If I were a monster, I would have _had my way with you_ by now."

Her body shuddered and she gazed downwards quickly, red tingeing her cheeks as he lifted the curse. She nodded meekly and looked up again. Ah, so maybe not too young for hormones. Tom inwardly smirked. It would only take a matter of time before Hermione Granger would fall in love with him and be willing to cut off her hand just to be able to hold her oh-so-deeply-caring, never-failing lover, Tom. Perhaps within the year. Perhaps even sooner.

"I will not be weak. T-tell me how to be strong."

"My pleasure. Now, try it again."

* * *

><p>After an hour, Tom began to fade, and so he returned to the diary. Hermione collapsed onto one of the couches in exhaustion. Flashes of the hour sprang unbidden into her mind. <em>Tom holding her, weaving his hand through her hair. <em>She shook her head violently-_Tom lightly touching her hand making the downwards arc of the Imperius-_ She scrunched her eyes shut-_Dangerous. _That's what Tom was. _Dark._

Hermione felt panicked inside like a trapped animal. She had a monster to find and destroy, a monster that had killed Justin and would kill her and all of the Muggleborns in the school. Harry, her best friend in the world, wasn't telling her that his scar was hurting. Ron only talked with her to point out her faults. Hagrid was apparently the one responsible. Justin was dead. His parents would come and pick up their son's body today. Hermione curled her body into a ball and felt incredibly and completely alone.

_You have Tom. _However, Hermione didn't know if Tom_ could_ be 'had.' The first thing he had ever told her was that he was not the possession of Hermione Granger, and the planner felt more and more dark with each passing day. The Imperius Curse felt like what Hermione imagined severe muggle drugs like cocaine to be -_he smelled of parchment, she had always loved the smell of parchment- _She clenched her fists with a spasm. She couldn't believe herself. Of course the first boy she is severely physically attracted to is _from a book. _

The first time Hermione had seen him in the yearbook, she noticed he was attractive. Dark hair, pale unblemished skin, high cheekbones, defined jaw, perfectly symmetrical and proportioned—she was evolutionarily bound to find him handsome, and Hermione _did _have a weakness for mere looks (she shuddered at her previous Lockhart infatuation.) Nevertheless, Hermione also prided herself on being a level-headed girl with her priorities straight: books before boys and brains before beauty.

No, it was the fact that Tom _knew_ things. His words were whispered with power behind them, cherry-picked into beautifully pronounced sentences. She could let her self-conscious monologue fall silent—she didn't have to explain _things over and over _to Tom like to Harry and Ron and everyone else she had ever met. And the way he stared at her… it was like she was the most interesting person alive.

But he was dark. He was dangerous, and Hermione did not know what would come next after him leaving the planner. Would he permanently leave? More importantly, how did Tom know so much about dark magic, and why was there no trace of him past his Hogwarts years?

How long could she keep him a secret?

Hermione stepped outside of the Room and headed towards the dungeons for Potions. Tomorrow, she would ask Tom where she should go to kill the monster. And after that was done, if she still lived, she would find out Tom Riddle's true story –_and you'll make him yours. _No, she will destroy him as well if he was as dark as she thought –_he'll teach you everything he knows. _She stomped her foot in anger. She was a good person, and no matter how attractive, powerful, or brilliant Tom Riddle was, she would never compromise her morals to impress a _mere boy._

Hermione stopped in her reverie, and looked around the Entrance Hall confusedly. She had sworn that she had heard something…but apparently it was just the stress of the past few days as a high, cold laugh drifted through her senses.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> _At this point, Hermione is thirteen years old and Tom is sixteen. I think the argument is very strong for Hermione to be physically attracted to Tom—she has a crush on Lockhart in CoS who is only worthy because of his looks. Tom, on the other hand, is canonically incapable of love of another human being, but not of ideas. He can love the idea of being in control, of power, of being special. It's a very narcissistic love, but of course, Hermione doesn't know that when he looks at her like she's fascinating it's because he finds himself as such. _

_Anyway, next chapter: Tom finds a way to keep Hermione reliant on him. Harry and Ron confront Hermione. Dumbledore grows suspicious. _

_As always, if you feel that my writing has become horribly out-of-character or that I'm making this too much like Humbert Humbert and Lolita, just let me know! _


	7. Learning the Ways of a Sociopath

_Oh that I could find a Chamber_

_Removed from prying eyes_

_Where secrets slither through crevices_

_Formed from seeping, acidic lies_

**Learning the ways of a Sociopath**

Justin Finch-Fletchley's parents came to retrieve their son's ashen body that afternoon. At the end of the memorial service in the Great Hall, Hermione weaved through the crowd in an attempt to talk with Justin's parents, to tell them that she would try everything in her power to stop whatever had killed their son. They were dressed in fine clothing-the father's suit must have been from Saville Row; his mother sobbed in heaving gasps into his shoulder. But when Hermione neared them, she could only barely make out the shoulder of Mr. Finch-Fletchley's suit jacket disappearing into the room behind the High Table.

Professor Dumbledore had made a somber speech to the silent, wide-eyed student body. Even Malfoy was attentive, hushing Crabbe and Goyle when the decorum proved boring to them.

_We shall do everything in our power to keep Hogwarts safe for its students-however, we ask that you do not put yourself in unnecessary danger-there shall be a new system where you must not ever be unescorted through the hallways-younger students must find older students to accompany them after-hours._

Hermione could not believe that Professor Dumbledore thought a buddy system would deter a fully-grown Acromantula. She had half of a mind to march up to the front of the Great Hall and yell that she knew what had killed Justin, that _Hagrid _had been responsible for the Chamber's opening 50 years prior. But, then again, if Tom had lied about any part of his story, she would look insane. It was best, even though it pained her to go so fully against her nature, to not tell the teachers anything before she was absolutely certain she was correct.

She felt a sudden pang of sympathy for Professor Snape. How he must hate Harry and Ron for quickly jumping to the wrong conclusions.

After failing to give her condolences to the Finch-Fletchleys, Hermione began the long climb up to Gryffindor Tower. She wanted to practice the Imperius Curse behind the closed, crimson drapes of her four-poster.

"Hermione!" two voices yelled from behind her. Harry and Ron. She didn't even turn around.

"We need to talk, Hermione," Harry said in his high, concerned voice. The only person she had been talking to with regularity was Tom, who spoke in a cadenced baritone. Harry seemed so young in comparison.

"Yes?" she asked curtly, turning on them. How did they not understand that their studies _mattered?_ She was sick and tired of only being used as the third musketeer, as the one they kept around for homework assistance. Her eyes flared at the pair in front of her. Ron shrunk behind Harry a bit.

"What has been going on, Hermione? You don't raise your hand in class anymore. You barely say two words to Ron and me. Parvati told Ginny who told Ron that you are gone the _entire night_ sometimes," Harry said in a rush.

Hermione tried something. She knew how Tom could have an effect on her simply by ramping up the intensity of an encounter. Harry and Ron would not approve of her friendship with Tom or her copious amounts of alone time studying and practicing curses. She needed to convince them that everything was fine, even if it meant skirting the truth a bit. The planner suddenly warmed under her robes (she had taken to carrying it with her in case someone spotted it in her bag.)

She needed to charm them. Like Tom charmed Dippet.

"I'm sorry..." she said, biting her lip for effect, "is there somewhere that we can go so I can explain what has been going on?"

Harry's eyes crinkled with relief. Ron stepped out from behind Harry and gave her a grin. "Of course...er, outside then?"

They walked through front doors out onto the grounds in silence to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Hermione tried to collect herself into the composed persona Tom always showed. She was no longer a flustered know-it-all, but that was all Harry and Ron knew her as. Her love of knowledge had transformed her into someone who wanted a complete picture, someone who wanted the ability to transfer spellbook knowledge to actual effect. They were not right for her any longer. She _was _their friend because no one wanted to deal with a frizzy-haired, annoying girl besides two people who happened to have saved her life. Was their friendship based on guilt? It always seemed like she was the third wheel, the Girl, the one that they rolled their eyes about -_It's Hermione again, caring too much about schoolwork-_.

She _had_ to care about learning. She had to learn to defend herself, to kill the thing that killed Justin. _She had to learn to impress Tom-_NO-She had to learn in order to show everyone that she was more than her impure blood-_She wanted to be able to have the effect on others that Tom had on her-_NO-she just wanted to be alone with her magic and her knowledge and to have everyone else know she was better, because she knew more, worked harder, _had more magic, more power, more hold, more everything..._

"It's about my family, actually," she began, looking first at Harry then at Ron from behind her eyelashes, "my mother...I don't know how long she'll be alive," she said quietly.

Harry looked dumbstruck. Ron looked at his feet. They both came in to give her a hug. Without any explanation, without any _real sort of lie _(her mother was sick with the flu, and she did not know exactly when her mother would end up passing away). She could tell that both of them felt too awkward to ask what exactly her mother suffered from or to follow up on their original accusations.

"I just need some distance right now, to _be whole_," she whispered into Harry's ear. She could feel him shudder under her breath. Ron hadn't heard, but both of them continued to hug her. Ron stepped back. Harry stood there, holding her waist, head on her shoulder. A flash of guilt reminded her that Harry probably was going through more emotion than she was at the moment, being reminded of his mother, whom he would never know. She leaned towards his ear again. "Meet me tonight, just you, at midnight outside of the tapestry on the seventh floor. I need to talk to you," she whispered again. Harry turned to her, befuddled as usual, but gave a slight, imperceptible nod. He knew as well as anyone that Ron could be unsympathetic. He had told her about the Mirror of Erised after their first year, and she could infer that Ron hadn't been the best ear to hear about Harry's long-gone family.

They trudged back up to the castle, Harry and Hermione listening to Ron lightly babbling about how there was no way on Earth he was going to pass Potions and how he thought that Malfoy was the Heir of Slytherin.

When Hermione got back to the Girls' Dormitory, her four roommates were happily at dinner. She pulled out her Planner and hurriedly scribbled into it with red ink.

_Tom, how do you manipulate people to make them believe something that's not true? _

**Hermione, I thought you were afraid that I would corrupt your soul. Now you're pointedly asking me to tell you how? **

_It's Harry and Ron. But mostly Harry. He's suspicious that I've been spending so much away from them, but I honestly don't want to spend time with them-_-_because they don't understand what is happening. _

She didn't want to express her lack of confidence in Tom's story as the reason she hadn't brought Ron and Harry into the loop. She also knew that any mention against Hagrid would be taken as a personal injury.

**You want me to assuage your friend's doubts?**

_I suppose that's one way of putting it._

**If there is one thing I learned in the orphanage, it is how to distance myself without making enemies. **

_How could you help me? _

**I can talk to Harry for you, feed you your lines. It would all be **-there was a pause in the elegant script- **voluntary, of course. You would be in control. There would just be companion in that brilliant mind of yours. **

_I'm meeting him at midnight in front of the secret room. You'll be with me? _

**Keep the diary on your person, and everything will go smoothly. **

_Thank you, Tom. _

Hermione shut the planner with a snap before gasping and reopening it to the page. The last two lines had just begun to fade. Diary... he had called the book a diary. Not a homework planner, not an academic study guide, but _a diary. _That explained a portion of why the Planner-no, diary-was so personable. It had something that Hermione could only define as "soul" and had none of the pedantic diction of the textbooks she so lovingly held.

Perhaps Tom was embarrassed to admit he had a diary. However, Tom seemed so _unembarrassed _at everything he did. The lilting words, the perfectly brushed black hair, his commanding presence even in the face of those five times his age. It seemed so uncharacteristic for him to be ashamed of anything really. What did he have to be ashamed about? His muggle father? His poor upbringing? She supposed those were large enough skeletons, especially for a Slytherin.

_However_, an unbidden voice in Hermione's head whispered, _you honestly think he has nothing to be ashamed about because he is everything you aspire to be. _

She wanted to practice curses with Tom again, to see him and ask him about his past, about what made him the way he was. She wanted to learn how he knew so many curses. But above all, she wanted to know how she could become him. Instead of the brash know-it-all she shuddered to recall, she wanted to be the collected, velvet-gloved holder of knowledge. She wanted to show everyone that had teased her that she was better than them, not through shoving her talent in their faces but by the soft power Tom so deftly wielded.

She rose from her four-poster and stepped into the bathroom, littered with Parvati and Lavender's cosmetics along with a stack of witches' fashion magazines. In the mirror stood a pale teenage girl. Her brown hair frizzed and curled as if her image wasn't staying still, as if she was quietly shifting every moment, ill-defined. Her eyes were cradled by indigo shadows, her lips chapped from the Scottish air. She hesitantly smiled, but quickly closed her mouth at the revealing of her unsightly front teeth. Honestly, for the daughter of dentists, you think she could be a better advertisement for their practice.

Her fingers, longish and delicate, were her favorite feature. She carefully turned each of the dozens of potions bottles towards her, reading the names off. _Sleek-Eazy Hair Potion, Voluminous Vixen Conditioner, Don't-Be-A-Hag Hair Removal. _All of the things she had so blithely cast aside for years as vanity and shallowness. _You're going to need to cultivate a presence if you want to get anywhere. _The mirror yawned at her and gave her a once over.

"Dearie, you could be so pretty if you tried. Not like those two girls, oh you know who I'm talking about. They don't try, they overcompensate."

Hermione lifted her shirt and prodded her stomach, slightly bloated from a particularly large portion of Shepherd's Pie she had at lunch, before the funeral.

"Oh, that's not the problem, love. You just need to use some of those potions, and sleep more. I always see you in here in the wee hours of the morning..." the mirror yawned again.

Hermione took the magazines, turned on the faucet of one of the bathtubs, and decided that she would craft a new image. One that was more in line with her growth as a witch, one that would make people take her seriously, and one that, when she looked in the mirror, knew she could defeat whatever it was that wanted to kill her. _Don't you think this is just a distraction? You should be studying spells and researching Acromantulas, and Learning. _Hermione brushed aside her pedantry and resolved to begin her quest to become the most knowledgeable, most dynamic, most in-control student at Hogwarts.

* * *

><p>Tom Riddle, from the confines of his diary, was curious as to the response of Hermione Granger to prolonged contact with his Horcrux. When Lucius Malfoy had opened the book several months prior and hesitantly wrote of Voldemort's destruction at the hands of Harry Potter, his will was not strong enough to resist the coercion Voldemort's reign had been built upon. It only took a few well-placed promises of recognition and honor and, perhaps a bit of something <em>Unforgivable <em>to bend Malfoy to his will. _Just like his father. For all of their well-bred, pureblood upbringing, neither Abraxas nor Lucius had the wherewithal to stand up to the Dark Lord. _

However, Hermione Granger seemed to be _internalizing _the diary. He hadn't used charms on her (past his own patented blend of seduction and flattery). He hadn't purposely bended her subconscious. Besides the brief sojourns of possession, he hadn't meddled with her mind at all. Part of him refused to out of his principles of cleanliness, as generally, the less time he had to spend in a Mudblood's mind, the better. However, part of it was a vanity issue. He wanted to see if he still had the ability to charm, and wanted to boast at the end to Potter himself that he didn't even need to influence his best friend. She had come willingly.

But whether it was the nature of the Horcrux or a testament to Granger's indeterminable will, she seemed to be _turning into him. _When he was placed on her person, he could catch the train of her thought, or at least her motivation and desire. For some odd reason, she had changed from a neurotic bookworm obsessed with assignments and due dates to someone who craved knowledge _for its use._ He had somewhat written her off at the beginning as a troubled girl who used the quest for academic perfection as a distraction for her insecurity, and he wasn't prepared to admit that he was wrong about that. Yet now...she thought the same thoughts he had when he was her age. He knew that he needed to craft himself anew, that he couldn't be a poor orphan and simultaneously lead the Noble House of Salazar Slytherin. He needed to embody his ancestor, learn words of power, learn magic lost to all before him, to unleash the Basilisk, to form a following, and to rid the Earth of the cretinous muggles who challenged magic's existence.

But why was Granger coming to the same conclusion of change? She seemed to become more sociopathic with every passing day. Manipulating Potter, detaching herself from classes, outright lying to friends. She had gained confidence in herself and her abilities. Tom prided himself on inspiring fear, not self-improvement! However, he could not help but feel a tinge of pride whenever she mastered a new spell, or asked a question he long ago posed to Professor Merrythought during his autodidactic academic career. There was no question that she was intelligent, and a part of him wished that he could kill her on the spot in order to assuage his doubts of supremacy.

A thought sprang to his mind. Perhaps the Basilisk wasn't the right tool for the moment. If Granger truly could serve as a foil to his mind and as a willing source of information, then he didn't necessarily need to arouse suspicion and fear in her mind through the Basilisk. He needed her to resurrect him, willingly. Every day they spent on this red herring was a day that Granger could be using learning the depths of magic needed to perform the resurrection ritual with the Diary. He just needed to find something to offer in return so that Granger would help him and to convince her that the Basilisk, or Acromantula, pardon, was no longer a threat. Once he had a body, everything would be easier.

And he knew exactly how to make Hermione agree.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thank you everyone for your patience! College, quite obviously, proved to be unsatisfactorily busy during the Fall Semester. However, I'm going to try to update a few times a month as penance for my cliffhanger sins. As always, reviews are appreciated greatly. <em>


	8. Life is a Gamble Betwixt Time and Mania

Chapter 8: Life is a Gamble Between Time and Passion

_**I do not own the time**_

_**I do not own the place**_

_**What I do own is the words, the passion, the agony**_

_**The cold, meandering pace.**_

* * *

><p>What did she need from Harry James Potter?<p>

She needed him to leave her alone. She needed him to stop bothering her about her.._.change in personality. _Fundamentally, she loved her silence in class and her quiet knowing that Tom had taught her was the true way to gain the respect of professors. Because she measured her words carefully, they actually listened to what she said instead of the eye-rolling and half-hearted "Miss Granger?" she had become so accustomed to.

She scrubbed her leg and noticed some bruises on her knees. They didn't hurt, but then again, she had been so distracted over the past few months living in her own head that the physical didn't seem to matter as much. She hardly ate, preferring coffee to keep her head clear.

She needed him to stop bothering her about that. If she could convince Harry tonight that it her disheveled state was merely a manifestation of her...worry for her mother, then Ron would follow. _But, you love them. They are your friends. You shouldn't be viewing them as pawns, following the command of the players. You are the player, Hermione? Since when did you find this necessary? This constant game of Wizards' chess? Barbaric and cruel. _

She noticed a long cut on her arm. Where did that come from? She had hardly been sleeping, and sometimes she woke up so tired that the small amount she got felt like it was spent sleepwalking. Maybe she was?

"You have a boyfriend, Hermione. You simply can't hide love from me. Why are you gone all night? Is he cute?" Parvati had asked cattily with narrowed eyes a few days prior. _You are not in love with Tom, _she felt it necessary to tell herself. Essentially, Parvati had no proof. Besides her mandatory presence at Quidditch practice (which she spent scribbling), she associated with no one. If Parvati wanted to make the assumption that she had a boyfriend who spent no time with Hermione in public, even the queen of gossip couldn't support that. There could be no, "Well you know she spends so much time with X" or "She bats her eyes at Y." She made her own destiny. _With Tom's help. _

She dried herself and dressed in black muggle clothing, perfect for sneaking around the castle at midnight. The mirror hummed approvingly at her more-human state. Half the battle with Harry would be appearance. If she made an effort, it would be easier for him to understand that she was, indeed, in control.

Harry would respond to emotion. He always had. With his past, it would be a wonder if he didn't have empathy. She slipped the planner...no, diary...into her robes. Suddenly, she saw the answer. Tom said he would help her speak to Harry. She just needed to learn from him, to see what he said and advised, and then she would go from there. What would she do without the diary? It was really precious. She shook her head. Since when did she start sounding like Gollum? Next thing she knew, she would be in an underground cave somewhere only writing to Tom. _You rely on him so much. Why? Are you truly in contr-_

The diary warmed and Hermione took that as a sign to get moving. She climbed out of the portrait hole and quietly padded to the tapestry. It was ten past midnight, and Harry materialized from under the invisibility cloak. She grabbed his hand because it seemed like the right thing to do, and paced with him three times in front of the gruesome tapestry. The door opened. And she let Tom into her mind.

The room became hazy and she felt a presence in her mind unlike anything she had ever experienced. **Leave it to me. **A giddy glaze floated over her eyes not unlike the sensation of the Imperius curse. She could see herself in the mirror of the faux-Gryffindor common room she had wished for, and Harry peered curiously at her.

"Harry, thank you so much for coming," the words spilled out in a voice that was unmistakably hers, but lower and more intense. _Like Tom's voice. _

"Hermione, you know how much we care about you," Harry said in an awkward questioning tone.

"I care about you too. I am so sorry for how I've been lately. But, _I knew that you would understand. _Ron is so hard sometimes, but you actually, know what it's like to feel alone."

Harry's eyes softened and it looked as if he were about to cry. "But you know, Hermione, friends are really good for that. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you and Ron. Hogwarts feels like my home because of you guys. You can tell me what's, er...you know, bothering you."

**Hermione, trust me. **Tom's voice reverberated in her head, and despite a part of her that desperately mistrusted Tom, she acquiesced.

* * *

><p>"I need <em>space, <em>Harry. It is painful for me to be happy, to put on a smile or strive for grades when my world has become so meaningless. I feel like I have been abandoned by my mother, and I know that's not true, but I need time to cope," Tom said, working Herm-Granger's mouth with ease now. For all of her desire to embody the identity he projected, she was a horrible liar. He gave a hesitant smile and felt the creases of her face rebel. She really hadn't smiled in a long time. He smirked-now that felt more natural.

Potter wasn't looking at him anymore. He was looking at Granger's feet so he didn't see the flash of Tom's experiment. Why was he looking there? He scoffed inwardly at the weakness of this boy. It fascinated him, disgusted him, that such a miserable boy could have ever killed Lord Voldemort. He could barely look his best friend in the eye. _That's why you don't have friends. They expose weakness, compromise you. _That's right. But now he needed information.

"Have I really been that bad?" he asked.

"You barely speak to us. You just write in that planner all the time, but I don't know what you're writing since you obviously don't need notes in class anymore. You just, er, seem to know things."

Tom gave an involuntary gasp. He hadn't realized the extent of her isolation. She did write in the diary an absurd amount, but time really didn't seem to pass in the same ways within the confines of the Horcrux. This was excellent. He thought that he still had a long way to go in completely separating Granger from Potter and Weasley as friendship seemed to be the annoying counterspell to possession.

"How are you doing?" he made himself ask. Like he cared about Potter's feelings, but years of manipulation taught him that this was the golden question.

"Well, it's been, hard. And now with the voices that I heard before Justin was...found," he trailed off.

It took all of Tom's self-control to stop himself from screaming, "Voices?"

"_Tell me more about the voices, Harry." _

"I haven't heard them since, but, er...just the ripping and tearing and killing parts.."

Potter was a Parseltongue. Tom wasn't one for profanity, but several choice curse words crossed his mind. He couldn't possibly be related to Slytherin. In his extensive research, Potter definitely didn't appear in the genealogy in any meaningful way besides the interrelated nature of all Pureblooded wizards. He dredged up the memory of his tutelage of Hermione when he taught her the basics of putting a part of a soul into a vessel. Of course, like all close-minded people, she had squirmed at the idea of Horcruxes, but she still found it fascinating

"_But Tom, then, would the object be like the person?" _

"**Oh no. It is simply held there, or so I've heard. It's a very obscure branch of magic that obviously hasn't been used. As far as I know, there's no transfer of sentience and the object doesn't start looking like the owner. Just theory really. I thought it be useful as the runes you're studying are also used for that." **

He couldn't possibly have her making the connection. But he just had in this fateful moment. Potter was a Horcrux. Well, this complicated the situation. A million different plans ran through his head. He'd need to extract it. That wouldn't be so difficult-the potion had a number of nasty ingredients, but he could easily have Granger ask that Lockhart buffoon to purchase them for her. A brilliant idea dawned upon him.

"Hermione, are you okay?"

"Oh, yes. I promise that I'll talk to you when...the wound has healed a bit. I just need to be alone for a while, Harry," he said distractedly. It seemed to be good enough for the emotional powerhouse that was Potter who looked as though he had just found out his parents were alive or something.

He let Granger back into control and they both watched Harry Potter leave the Room of Hidden Things. As the door shut, Tom materialized in corporeal form on one of the couches.

"Hermione, your friend is being possessed."

She blinked, bleary from the ironic possession. "What? Harry isn't possessed. A bit clueless sometimes, but certainly not possessed!"

"The scar-the jagged lightning bolt. I've come across it in my studies. He told me about some voices-that's probably where they're coming from."

He could see the gears moving behind her eyes. This was the gambit. If she could be convinced that the potion was to...exorcise...Potter then she would be more easily persuaded to not only take some of Potter's blood for the resurrection but also to administer the potion to remove the Horcrux. Two birds. One stone. As the Muggles would say, that is.

"Oh God. I didn't even think about that. But, I mean, Professor Dumbledore would have told Harry if the scar was bad..."

"Dumbledore wouldn't know a possession if it happened right under his nose."

Granger stared at him. Mistake. He was not on his best game this evening. Despite his presence in Granger's life, he still could not convince her that Dumbledore was a meddling, woefully ignorant sod. She surprisingly let it go and sat down next to him on the couch.

"What do we do?"

Part two of the move.

"I know that we can help him, Hermione. It's going to be hard, but with some research and work I think that we can help Harry."

"But what about Justin and the monster?"

"Sadly, we can't do a thing until the next attack. If Harry's being possessed... he might even be, unknowingly of course, behind the attacks." The perfect explanation to get her more focused on him instead of an imaginary threat. As if he were going to kill the girl with the Basilisk when she was going to be the primary instrument in his return.

She seemed to be remembering something, her eyes flitting to the left corner as she did when she recalled books and spells. He could feel her gaze while he was in the diary-it was...strange to view it from outside.

"Someone tried to possess Harry's broomstick last year. Do you think that it could be V-Voldemort?"

"It very may well be, from what you've told me."

"Oh God."

"Indeed."

The fire crackled and the air of the room changed. A strange prickling sensation crawled up Tom's arm and landed in his stomach. _Th-thum. _His heart. It was beating. He looked at Granger whose face was crumpled in an expression of deep sadness. Sooner than he thought—what must it feel like to wear one's emotions so easily. But then, for the first time since he had been a very, very young child, he felt not the hot propellant of manic ambition but the muted mask of sadness.

She reached out to grab Tom's robe, and to his great surprise, he felt it. His arm slowly became opaque, a wave of solid color and he could feel his face warm. He did not just hear the fire crackle. He felt its warmth, the hotness of fire mixed with a light fall breeze sifting through the window. Life. Fifty years trapped in a book, smelling only parchment and ink and now the overpowering scent of rose filled his mind. _She_ did this. She finally trusted him enough.

"Tom? Why do you look so real?"

He couldn't even be bothered to lie.

"You, apparently."

"Ha-that's nice, Tom. I bet this is just a dream," she trailed off blearily, and she laid her head upon his shoulder. All of the stimulants of life were hurtling toward him. The breeze combining with the fall and rising of her breath mixed with that powerful, heady scent and his own smell of parchment. He could feel her cheek pressed lightly against his shoulder, the sound of his own heart again. Why was this so bright? Even when his soul was whole, he had never been so alive. It felt like the Dark Arts.

She looked up at him with eyes that betrayed adoration.

It seemed like the right thing to do. For, the plan, that is.

He kissed her.

* * *

><p>AN

Firstly, I'm terribly sorry for the long delay between chapters. Secondly, thank you so much for the kind and constructive reviews. Seriously. It might seem that I am ungrateful or something-but no, just the insane life of university and a...wait for it..._writing job_! I actually get paid to write now! Imagine my shock. However, I'm finding that nothing is more fulfilling than writing something like Willing Descent. So, as much as I have promised updates in the past on a more frequent timetable, this time, it is indeed true. I suppose I'll just have to prove it.

As for this end-of-chapter bombshell, after about six months of contemplation, I now have the perfect arc to this story. One that will not compromise my TMR/HJG philosophy, but will hopefully be satisfying in its originality and believability. It shall still be slow, but a different kind of slow.

As always, I absolutely adore reading your reviews on writing style and your opinions about the story. Even if it's a "keep writing." I know it sounds incredibly silly, but it can be disheartening to be lost in the fabric of the Internet even for the most secure of writers.


	9. If I Cannot Feel Love, Nor Will I Fear

Chapter 9: If I Cannot Love, Then Neither Will I Fear

* * *

><p><strong>I do not possess a clue<strong>

**As to why I write**

**But death, my dear, it calls**

**And this way stays the fright**

* * *

><p>Hermione's eyes shot open as she felt Tom Riddle's lips, and she scrambled backwards onto the couch. He flickered in front of her, frowning, and the pages of the diary violently fluttered to today's date before he disappeared into them silently.<p>

_Her first kiss. Tom. What? _

She grabbed a quill and began to write in a near-unintelligible scrawl:

_Tom. Tom! I'm sorry. You startled me. Please don't be angry with me. Thank you so much for telling me about Harry. I knew it was a good idea for you to meet. Please don't be cross!_

And in much smaller print, her hand shaking as a cold coil of adrenaline unfurled in her stomach, she wrote:

_What?_

The pages of the diary remained blank. For the first time ever, Tom did not write back. Hermione threw the diary onto the ground and kicked it under the table, ripping a page as it snagged under her shoe. Of course! She had to go ruining everything. Why couldn't she have just taken this development calmly, logically, as if there was nothing strange about a fifty-year-old spirit that didn't really even have corporeality coming out of a book to kiss a thirteen year-old girl. _Well, when you put it like that. _

Did Tom even like her? She blushed at the thought. Of course he didn't. Boys never liked Hermione-especially boys with high cheekbones who were clever and could hold a conversation and actually loved learning. Boys like Tom didn't exist in Hermione's world. The older boys at Hogwarts were more along the lines of the Weasley twins-pranksters who unashamedly chased after girls and had a sort of competition as to who could be the worst student. The older boys in her neighborhood in London were even more horrid-not even pretending to care about anything other than loitering and drinking. Come to think of it, she had never met anyone in her life under 40 whose habits and demeanor even remotely resembled Tom.

_He must just be lonely. You'd be ready to spring on the first thing to saunter by after fifty years locked up in a book. _Hermione clenched her teeth and noticed she was standing above the book with her fists balled up and her shoulders hunched. Since when had she been so stressed? _Since meeting Tom! _She couldn't even really remember what she had said to Harry at all-only that Tom had gently worked her mouth, his deep voice reverberating in her head, telling her...What did he tell her?

She screamed and pulled down on her hair. Why didn't he respond? She invested so much into him, into the diary, into believing that he was the one person, the one teacher that would be perfect just because he had _NOTHING ELSE TO DO. _Tom, how does one cast the Patronus Charm? Tom, why hasn't a wizard been able to treat cancer? Tom, why did the Goblin Wars only end after mediation by a third party? She hated herself for being so needy, but unlike every other teacher who always stepped back and shut Hermione up, Tom craved contact and thus shared knowledge as if it was his only want. _Perhaps you were what he wanted all along... _

Hermione sat down and blankly stared at the door. She couldn't accept that. There was no possible way that Tom Riddle had any romantic feelings towards her in the slightest. There had to be some sort of manipulation at play. Boys had done this to her before, had told her that they fancied her only to snigger with their friends at her too-eager face and buck-toothed smile. Merlin, she didn't want to believe it. It'd be so much simpler, nicer, neater to believe that she and Tom could somehow work past this and go back to being student and mentor for eternity. But whether or not his feelings were genuine, she simply was unable to believe that any boy would like her for herself. There had always been a sick ulterior motive masking the sentiment that Ronald Weasley spat on Halloween night last year. Even though Tom was different in most ways, he probably was the same in this one.

She trudged back to Gryffindor Common Room and realized as she arrived at the Fat Lady that she had left the diary behind. With an appraising glare, the Fat Lady suddenly smiled. "Dearie, you look like a new woman!" she sang, and opened wide after Hermione muttered the password- "Valiance."

As the Fat Lady swung open to reveal her home, Hermione felt inexplicably light, as if a twenty-pound cloak had just been gently sloughed from her shoulders. She climbed through the hole, ran up to her bed in leaps and bounds and snuggled under the blankets as a fire crackled in the corner. Why had she relied on Tom so much again? This felt...so...much...nicer...easier...better.

_But not right._

* * *

><p>Tom could not trust anything, including himself. And so, after Granger pulled away, he disintegrated into the diary and landed face-down with a thud onto the stone floor of the Slytherin Common Room. He felt nothing. Good. Nothing was good.<p>

Tom Marvolo Riddle considered himself a sadist. When he had no one to practice violence or manipulation upon, he turned upon himself in an effort that would be incorrectly described as masochism. At the orphanage, this resulted in a dual occupation of his attentions. On the traditionally sadistic side, he would plot out each of his fellow orphans' tortures and execute them one by one. The trip to the sea, the snake bite incident, etc. When he deemed that someone wasn't worth his efforts, he'd merely steal something as a sort of passive way of retribution for the victim not recognizing him as superior.

When the sweet results of his sadism became soured by predictability and especially later on during his career at Hogwarts, Tom liked to push _himself _to his limits. He would study for 48 hours straight without food or water. He would go without sleep for nearly a week and endeavor to distinguish hallucination from reality. He would perform torture curses on himself for hours until he felt his nerve endings were burnt beyond salvation, and then he would do it again. He would try muggle drugs and then quit them just to prove that nothing could addict him-that nothing distract him from his independent ambition to cheat death. However, at the end of every challenge, he was only reminded that he possessed no particularly superhuman ability to resist fatigue or starvation or even nicotine. It was hard. He hated that it was hard. And yet, the final problem, the final issue of not sensing anything at all paled in comparison to the corporeal pain he felt.

Women never figured into the self-sadistic equation. He felt nothing for them. On the other hand, various members of the Knights of Walpurgis would do any number of idiotic things to impress a girl. For example, one time, Abraxas Malfoy had cut off his most prized possession in order to please a French pureblood from Beauxbatons. Turns out, his second-most prized possession wasn't enough to make up for the improved haircut. Relationships introduced uncertainty, and Tom did not have enough time in order to indulge in doubt. He had, on the upper limit, 150 years to find some way to make himself immortal. Considering that no one had come close despite wizardry's long tradition, Tom could not bet on his superior intelligence to find a way before his death.

It wasn't until he delved too far into the Dark Arts that he realized there was an addiction he would never be able to shake: the Cruciatus. Each time he uttered it, a warm blast of power would shoot through his arm to warm his chest. He couldn't _help _but smile.

He felt the same way as his lips touched Granger's.

There were several ways this could go. Tom rummaged around under his bed for some parchment and quickly wrote out a list:

Kill Granger

Use Granger to get Potter's blood, and then kill Granger

Kill Potter by some other way, then kill Granger

Kill Granger and take my chances with some other Gryffindor to kill Potter

Kill Potter...

He was tempted to write, "and hide the fact you killed Potter from Granger. Do not kill Granger."

How could she be useful to him? There were several answers, of course, that he had already contemplated. For one, Dumbledore had no reason to suspect that Hermione had anything to do with Voldemort or Dark Magic. Tom could definitely sacrifice some of the strength that he drained from her in order to convince the staff and the meddling fool of her dedication to Potter and all things light. She was smart and even helped Tom reach some conclusions about Potter that would have taken longer on his own. _Most importantly, she could brew the potion to extract Potter's Horcrux and thus make my older self able to dispose of him. _

He needed corporeal form to perform the ritual. He need Granger to give him corporeal form, apparently. At this stage, a...physical relationship with Granger was the only way guarantee this. She was so starved for affection. The merest hint of reciprocity was enough to give Tom a sort of lingering high. _This is why we are strong, and she is weak. '_

And the voice that he had beaten down, held back bloody as it teemed forth from the neuroses of his mind did not agree for once.

_Yet have you not achieved immortality, Tom? This game could go on forever. Half of a soul forever is much better than a complete one truncated. The only death you can face if you play it safe is if someone finds out about this book. _

Too risky. Granger would have to die.

_Don't kill her. _

He must.

And he spun around full circle to lay eyes upon his eternal frame. Forever a 6th year, as a breath before his New Year's Eve birthday, the breath before it jumped to the next stage, the next year ticking down his death. Any fleeting happiness that Granger might give him, if he were even to admit such a possibility, is nothing compared to an infinite array of experiences he could have if he played his cards right.

He read once that he would never be able to feel love. His mother had ensured with his father's sip of dusky love potion that her offspring, progeny, spawn would also never share that genuine article. He couldn't even imagine what it was. The best he could do was not feel fear, and in the arms of one Hermione Granger, that was all his shorn heart felt.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: Thank you for sticking with me. Onwards, ho. <strong>


End file.
